


Footprints of My Own

by randomalia (spilinski)



Category: Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace
Genre: Growing Up, Jedi Temple, Jedi Training, M/M, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-27
Updated: 2015-06-27
Packaged: 2018-04-06 11:00:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,010
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4219233
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spilinski/pseuds/randomalia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Obi-Wan discovers the real lesson of self-defense.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Footprints of My Own

**Author's Note:**

> Set pre-TPM. Title from a poem by W.S. Merwin.

Obi-Wan began learning self-defense around the same time he began learning to read. He is young enough, still, to remember the soft dryness of the tumbling mats and the way they didn't really cushion you when you fell. There was always someone in his clan that landed badly and was quietly led away to the Healers while the rest of them stood and watched. Obi-Wan didn't show it when he hurt and so he never had to leave; some days he got bruises, or a redness on the point of his elbow or his hand that itched and glowed hot, but there wasn't anything to be done about it. The problem wasn't that the mats were too thin, but that he fell at all.

At that age, whatever it was, he had thought that if he kept going and trying, his body would finally understand how to move and he wouldn't ever stumble again. It was a place he thought he would arrive at; he simply had to keep walking until he got there.

The training halls are ancient and carved out with the same soft light that has been falling through the high windows forever. The floor springs deceptively under his feet; in the far corner lie piled blue mats looking disheveled and quiet. Now, Obi-Wan forgoes the mats. He is a Padawan, and allowed to take his falls alone, and hard, and without having to be sent away for the resulting pain.

He is still waiting for the moment when he will choose to do something and have his body obey flawlessly.

Qui-Gon follows him into the hall, and they shed their robes and take up position without speaking. Hand-to-hand combat skill is as vital to a Jedi as a lightsaber, and equally as dangerous. _The first lesson can be a confusing one_ , the Masters would remind them when they were young, _you must first learn not to hurt yourself. Be aware that you can hurt yourself as much as your opponent can. Be mindful of what you do._

Facing him, Qui-Gon is a towering statue, a steadfast tree, a stone-walled castle. Qui-Gon's eyelids sink gently as they bow to one another; his eyes always close into the bend, are always open when Obi-Wan next sees them, open and ready and silent.

_Self-defense is commonly achieved with a lightsaber, our traditional weapon and tool. But your hands may be more powerful yet, more careful and more reliable. A Jedi may lose a lightsaber. With your hands, you may build another._

Obi-Wan's readiness, his stillness, is a reverberating echo of Qui-Gon's. His chest is moving, his fingers curling towards his empty palms.

"Open hand," Qui-Gon instructs, indicating weaponless sparring, and Obi-Wan nods; his lips move but fail to form a sound in response. They are the only ones in the great hall. Obi-Wan is small beneath the distant, arching ceiling. Qui-Gon waits with implacable blue eyes.

After another thin breath, Obi-Wan steps forward.

The first time they had fought like this had been strange. Obi-Wan thinks it might have been the first time he had reached out and touched Qui-Gon, had been allowed to, the first time his hand had registered the heat that lay beneath the worn cloth. That warmth had seemed to travel up into Obi-Wan's own body, as though his nerves had stolen some of it; it had spilled out into his cheeks and dripped down into his belly. He had been hesitant to grapple with his Master, tentatively wrapping his fingers around a muscled arm, curving in beneath the lower swell of a bicep for just a second before finding himself on the floor, panting. Qui-Gon was already several steps away, standing calmly and looking as though he had not shifted at all.

Obi-Wan is stronger and less timid now; now he knows that he will only hit the smooth wooden floor far more quickly if he doesn't push and grip and switch as hard as he can. He pulls and Qui-Gon ducks out of the way; they break off, circling, gazes sharp. Obi-Wan hears his own breathing as he watches Qui-Gon move carefully, just so, just perfect.

Self-defense is taught before, and taught longer than offensive skills. It makes sense because of their philosophy, their commitment to protecting things, even someone pointing a blaster at you. It took some time, some years of hearing the low whoosh of air as his body thumped into the mat, before Obi-Wan realised it was also because the Jedi needed it so much. He had realised that the Knights who passed him in the halls went out into the galaxy and sometimes didn't return. Some did but didn't survive, and there were quiet days that followed when smoke would billow out from the Temple, from the special high chamber, thin and insignificant in the hard surrounds of the city, drifting up until it disappeared entirely.

This last tenday, Qui-Gon has worked hard to teach him defensive hand-to-hand, and afterwards Obi-Wan has lain on his bed in the deep night, feeling the throb of pain inside his body. He reads to redirect his mind, focusing on static text and complex language with a quivering single-mindedness.

The real lesson, the one the Masters didn't tell them about, was failure. Sooner or later the younglings became Padawans who trained without mats, and those Padawans eventually stepped forward to be Knights, and all the while they learned and watched as others quietly left the group, unable to keep going. Knowing your own pain, and knowing it would come and go and you would try again: that was the lesson of self-defense.

In the training hall, Qui-Gon is walking around to Obi-Wan's right, his pace steady and measured. His strong hands are relaxed at his sides. He passes in front of the far-off windows and for a moment is immersed in pure light, radiant and surprising. Everything appears to slow and sink into stillness; the air is coloured with softly-spreading sunshine.

Obi-Wan feels the old sensation of falling, and the unyielding ground below.

 

.....


End file.
